Hyperreal

Not long back from a weekend away in Aberdeen… I had a fabulous time!

First I’ve got to mention two very lovely ladies, one of whom was generous to share her company and car to get me there, and the other who also shared her company and put me up for the night in comfort. Without their generosity I’d have been stuck at home all weekend doing the boring virtuous stuff I was meant to be doing.

I couldn’t ask for two better friends.

Getting down to it now… We arrived nice and early for the party and got to help set up some of the decoration to mark the leaving of one of Aberdeen’s favourite dancers. With this going on, and not many people there the night of dancing got off to a slow start, but soon enough the place filled up – apparently it was much, much busier than usual – especially with women, all there to see me obviously… Or maybe not…

As I hadn’t danced in a while, and still wasn’t 100% recovered from being ill, I’ve got to say my dancing also got off to a slow start, and I don’t think I ever really got in “the zone”, though I came close a few times…

We had a rather fun class to do before the main part of the evening though, so I’m getting ahead of myself again!!!

The class was taken by our departing star, aided by two lovely assistants who had on lovely swirly skirts, but apparently not enough underwear!

If you can count you’ll have just figured out that this much have been a Double Trouble class, and you’d be bang on! This was my first ever experience of trying this rather spectacular sport. and the funny thing is that although it looks and is cunningly difficult, it isn’t actually as hard as you might think. Or at least the stuff we did was manageable.

OK, the moves were really noddy, but you’ve got to start somewhere…

It seemed that almost everyone took park in the class, which makes me think that at that time there must have been around twice as many women in the room as guys, maybe making about 30 triples (was going to say couples there!)

OK, the moves, if I can remember them…

• We started with just a simple leading of the rhythm, a spin and a return to allow the guys to get used to leading too different ladies, each of whom will have their own tension and timing. So an extended “5, 6, 7, 8″ thing, a clockwise spin, and a return.
• Yo-yo catapult… Getting way more complicated… Yo-yo the RH lady while catapulting the LH lady to your left. LH catapults on their own are strange… In order to make it compatible with the catapult (complete with stepping forward) and because you can’t turn to face in the yo-yo it has to change quite a bit… first on the sweep out, as you’re stepping forward for the LH catapult, you’re obviously stepping forward during the yo-yo… Then you need to step back and lead the girl back round to go into the yo-yo block to your RH side. (I think this is actually more like the traditional yo-yo anyway.) While you’re leading the RH girl forward into the block, you’ve led the LH girl directly forward so she’s sort-of by your LH side. you now need to spin both of them CW. The yo-yo is easy, just a simple push spin… The LH girl you have to spin her off from her right arm which you kept low as you led her forward. Once they come round, catch and return.
• Comb walkround… Comb yourself with the RH girl and lead the LH girl around you while you do cool wiggling things with your current favourite. Main difficult is leading the combed lady to step back once the other girl has come round. I guess a hip lead would be possible, but I just brought my RH back in front and took her hand off my shoulder and led her back. Then return. We were sort-of taught a return at the start of this move to get into the comb, but I usually stuck it on the end of the return from the previous move.
• Circle cuddle – now you want to get your RH girl’s LH… As you don’t have an easy way to do this, she has to do this for you… Alas, this requires a signal! By double-tapping the back of the girl’s hand she’s mean to switch hands and then use her newly spare RH to take the other girl’s spare LH to form a wee circle. For best results you should allow a couple of in-and-outs for all this to happen. If the signal doesn’t work, saying “circle” to your RH partner should hopefully do the trick! In practice I think I’d just use the verbal signal… Don’t know…
• The cuddle… Draw a ACW circle with your LH and a CW circle with your RH, to first bring the girls in, round to face and all the way to face away from you. You’ll have to have lifted your hands above the girls heads to get this to work of course… Now they are side to side in front of you, take your hands down to their hips and lead a wiggle down and up. Vary according to taste… Back up and reverse the motion to get back to your stepped-out circle.
• Break-through… Lead the girls forward and step through their hand-hold; turn to face, which they hopefully should also have done; catch and return. (You may have noticed that your ex-RH girl is now your LH girl and visa-versa.)

I had two problems… First sometimes I wasn’t entirely sure what moves we were meant to be rehearsing at any one moment (due to too much chatting/chattering and often a poor view as the guys were being moved round), and as my lead will have been hesitant as a result, it leaves the girls to anticipate what I wanted them to do, rather than what I had thought I was meant to do. Second… it’s just damn hard to do two different things at the same times with different arms. As it was really only the yo-yo catapult that had this, it was the one I messed up most.

But it was lots of fun, and it felt really good when things did work and I had the opportunity to lead two girls in circles around me simply for my pleasure… Maybe they enjoyed it too…

I didn’t try any DT during the freestyle, but I might give it a wee go during the week and I’m really looking forward to learning more this weekend coming at the BFG.

The freestyle was spent dancing with loads of ladies… Sometimes I’m shy to ask girls I don’t know at “foreign” venues, but maybe with meeting so many during the class, or maybe because the Aberdeen ladies are just so friendly, I didn’t find it such a problem. Or maybe I was just desperate enough…

Don’t think I managed to dance with everyone I wanted to, but there’s only so much queuing I’m going to do, and sometimes you just lose people all night until the end when you realise you didn’t dance with them.

I loved being asked to dance though, and I’ve got a few names and faces filed away to watch out for in the future…

Actually maybe that was a help last night as from previous visits to Aberdeen, Dundee, and other events I already “knew” and/or was known to lots of women there. A familiar face always helps. A pointed finger of recommendation helps even more sometimes.

Oh, I should mention one dance in particular… At the very start of the night I had a wee go at following the lead of one of my co-conspirators, but our combined inexperience meant it was pretty awful really… But I was later asked if I wanted to dance as a follower by a very good lady lead.

As I had very little following experience it shouldn’t be a surprise that it didn’t really go very well… But it was lots of fun and we made it through the whole song without too many tears and quite a lot of laughs. My admiration for women dancers continues to increase.

The most embarrassing bit was being led into a lean and letting out a bit of a yelp in surprise (we won’t call it a scream, as that would be girly.) Can’t remember much about the other moves beyond that I was in blind terror for much of the dance apart from the bit where I stole the lead back for a bit.

Good points… I don’t think I anticipated much if at all. Bad points… everything else I did!

Later as I demonstrating to my other leader how weird the basket felt for me, I was leant again, and once again vocalised my surprise.

I’m determined to do better though, so if you’re a good female lead (and you think I can trust you!!!) make sure and ask me for a leading dance soon – you’ll be amazed at how bad I am!

Towards the end of the night the music got a bit more bluesy, and I sat out quite a few dances. I’d like to be able to do justice to some of these songs which I don’t think I have the knowledge to do currently, but maybe Steve’s workshops at the BFG will help. This morning I watched some of his DVD and I think I want a copy! (I want to be able to lead a lady into a “cup of tea,” but not so sure about the “dive.” )

Last night I also got the chance to see a wee bit of my dancing that was caught on camera at the Scottish competition last month… I didn’t think I looked too bad, but I did look a bit … maybe … casual … Or perhaps a better word would be cool. Really got to do something with my limp spare arm though…

All-in-all I’ve had a great weekend. I met lots of nice people, danced with many of them, enjoyed every minute of it. It was really great to see everyone who was there and be made to feel so welcome (and again today when I popped into a workshop for a moment.)

Looking forward to seeing as many of them as possible again this weekend. Or at the Beach Ballroom weekend next month. I had a wee scout around there this morning, but I’m so looking forward to seeing what’s it’s like inside.

I keep thinking I’ve forgotten something, or forgotten to thank someone. Hope not… Just in case…

Thanks to the teachers/demos/venue management/bar staff. Thanks to the DJ for some great music. (So very very little I didn’t want to dance to. Lots and lots I love dancing to!) Thanks to all the dancers I danced with, sorry to those I didn’t get round to.

Hope to see you all again soon!